Mercy
by Chirinah
Summary: …some people just don't deserve it. /Or what happens when you ignore the warning signs./


WARNING: Some not very detailed violence, dark themes, though it may be just my paranoia. OOC in a way.

I was rather bored, and just came up with this. Haaaaah. I wish KHR would be continued, though that may only be in another parallel world.

Read and Review! Tell me if you hate it!

Mercy

…some people just don't deserve it. /Or what happens when you ignore the warning signs./

 **First Offense**

The Vongola isn't your typical family. More often than not, their members are out for each other's throats, violently attacking each other until their bloodlusts curb or until someone dies—but make no mistake, for **they are family.**

It doesn't matter that they aren't really blood-related, or even from the same country. It doesn't matter that Mukuro and Hibari are always trying to kill each other on a daily basis, or that Gokudera and Yamamoto are still competing for the title of 'right-hand man', or that Reborn still tortures Tsuna for fun. It doesn't matter that Xanxus still shoots flames in frenzy whenever Tsuna is in sight, or that Belphegor and Squalo still tries to cut them into ribbons all the time. Mukuro still threatens to possess Tsuna, Hibari still bites everyone for the slightest offense, Ryohei still gets on everyone's nerves and Lambo is still on everyone's death list, but that's just how they roll.

They are family, and despite never-ending evidences to the contrary, they do _care for each other._

It's just really, _really,_ really hard to see.

Fuuta, I-pin, Lambo and, later on, Fran, are the youngest of the _pack_ and are naturally the victims of mother-henning from just about everyone. Aside from Tsuna, the lot of them are the most overly protected members.

So when news came that all four of them are attacked while going home from school—which Tsuna insisted they attend with a bit of _help_ from Hibari—it took quite a lot of effort and pain to persuade Tsuna that they didn't need to be homeschooled, and _no, they don't really hate school. Also, they took care of the assailant pretty well, if they do say so themselves._

They were followed by bodyguards for a week, which cemented their rich kids status to the mind of the student body, but no one really heard them complaining. They were rather stumped when Tsuna-nii decided they didn't need the men in black anymore.

Hibari whacked them each to the head for that.

 **Second Offense**

Tsuna took his family's safety really seriously, so even though the kids have managed to protect themselves from the attackers, Tsuna wasn't just going to sit by and watch them leave unpunished. He hunted them down, found the Famiglia who gave them the orders to attack the weak-links—Pah!—of the Vongola Famiglia and possibly use them to get the upper-hand against Tsuna—since everyone knows Tsuna is simply a saint and would never let his charges get hurt—and then promptly gave them to Hibari who took joy in biting them to death.

He also told Irie to squeeze their bank accounts dry and send the money to charitable institutions.

He thought that would be enough to warn other families against trying to harm their youngest—the older ones are free game, in fact, they _encourage_ it—but apparently, most people in the world are stupid. So a month later, another group tried to abduct their children once more.

This time, they sent more than thirty people and not just a three-man group, and ambushed the four primary school kids while they were on the way to a school trip.

Fran and I-pin and Lambo managed to defeat most of them, but in the midst of the fight, one ugly man—in Fran's words, "mantis-looking tooth decay fungi with four missing teeth"—had shot Fuuta with a paralyzing dart and captured him. If not for Fran using his illusion to swap Fuuta with a clone, Fuuta would've been abducted and Tsuna would freak.

No one liked Tsuna when he's freaking.

When their reinforcements arrived in the form of a seething and ready to explode Storm Guardian and a livid Cloud, most of the enemies have fled screaming from the morbid images Fran put in their heads. And the smell of I-pin's Gyoza Ken: Poisoned Edition, influenced by Bianchi. This did not do much to ease the Guardians' ire, however, and the two quickly sent men to pursue and capture the assailants.

They were tougher than the first group, but they still didn't last very long against Mukuro's special interrogation technique.

Enraged at the sight of Fuuta's pale sleeping form and Lambo and I-pin's bruises, Tsuna ordered an attack, right then and there, to the enemy Famiglia.

The next day, three hundred Mafioso were found bound and gagged in front of different police stations with files detailing each ones crimes.

A letter of warning was sent to every enemy Famiglia's mailboxes thereafter, along with several convicting evidences, since an indirect warning apparently didn't work.

Tsuna hoped the stupid asses would get it this time, but he wasn't holding his breath anymore.

 **Third Offense**

The third time someone dared to attack their youngest, everyone sighed.

The four of them went back all bruised and bloody, the carpets had no hope of surviving. Ryohei was immediately all over them, and Yamamoto punched Squalo's number to inform them of Fran's conditions. This time, the assailants used drugs to weaken them so Fran wasn't able to use much of his powers. Fuuta was in a critical condition after taking a bullet to the chest protecting Lambo, and I-pin and Lambo both had more than a couple of broken bones.

All of the Guardians were in a mission at the time, and Tsuna could only conclude there was a mole by their side, considering the whereabouts of the Guardians weren't exactly public knowledge. Yamamoto and Ryohei finished up early, and was home by the time the kids got there, but Gokuderan, Hibari, Mukuro and Chrome were all still in different parts of the world and not quite accessible. Tsuna was in the Headquarters attending a special summit with the other bosses in the Vongola Alliance, and wouldn't be out of it for at least a few hours. The Varia were in their castle, and was around half a day away.

The kids only had themselves to rely on.

They were ambushed, as was usual, as they were going home from school. All of them were bone-deep tired from all the activities they were forced to do for the Cultural Festival, and had less than three hours of sleep the night before. It was to no surprise that they were caught in a trap and surrounded.

It was four groggy kids against a hundred.

I-pin took out twenty before she inhaled the fumes from the smoke bomb fired by the enemy which contained chloroform. It was only her training that kept her mostly on her feet, but her punches were still weakened. Lambo electrocuted about thirty, knocking them flat out, before she inhaled the same stuff as I-pin and, not having the same immunity against poisons and drugs, fell asleep. Fuuta held his own rather well, taking out ten or so by himself, but he wasn't really a fighter, and coupled with his incessant worrying for the other three, he was ultimately overpowered by one man who punched him in the face and cut him with a silver dagger in one arm.

Fran took out the most, and even conjured a gas mask for himself, but after seeing his comrades fall, he faltered for a second—just a second—and was hit to the face with sleeping gas. It didn't do much, but his illusions were weakened by a bit.

He was able to drag the rest of them away after focusing all his strength into one miniature version of Genju Gagaia, and hotwired a nearby car and drove to the mansion.

He passed out a hundred meters from the house, losing quite a bit of blood from a stab wound he couldn't avoid, and crashed the car to the gate.

Ryohei was murderous.

Takeshi went to get his squad and captured the assailants, called using the emergency line to inform the other Guardians and waited.

Three days later, the Tenth Generation Vongola Guardians along with the Varia and the Arcobaleno, the Shimon, Cavallone and the newly reformed Millefiore gathered in the Vongola Mansion's largest conference room, planning a massacre.

"We found the Famiglia, Tenth. They're pretty big, and had ties with the Vongola in Ottavo's time, before they were cut off from the alliance for attacking Ottavo and her Guardians in a meeting. They're pretty stupid, but they're big, and apparently have the support of several enemy Famiglia. They're also allied to the two other Famiglia which attacked the kids prior on," Gokudera reported.

"They're really stupid, huh?" Dino said, half amused, half furious.

"Yeah, making the same mistake twice was bad enough, but doing it thrice…" Tsuna sighed. Deep inside, he was seething. Fuuta, I-pin, Lambo and Fran were under his care and he would never forgive those who tried to hurt them, but he had hoped the enemy would have learned the first two times.

Vongola was the strongest Mafia Famiglia. In terms of history, tradition, power and strength, they were the best. What were those fools thinking attacking their youngest?

"This is your fault, trash, I told you we should just destroy them, but you always have to be so fucking soft," Xanxus growled. Gokudera sent him scathing looks, which he returned with his own.

Tsuna knew half of the people in the room was thinking along the same lines. If he was harsher in dealing with the previous ones, they would've learned far better. They would never have gone against them. The enemy was using his kindness as a weakness, using his mercy as a safety blanket.

Tsuna hated violence. During conflicts, he would try to use diplomacy first and foremost, trying to settle every single problem peacefully. He hated having to use his strength to make people fear him. He was, after all, trying to take Vongola back to its original form, one that used its power for the good of others. Protecting the weak…

"Naïve," a whisper.

And yes, that was exactly what he was.

He was aware, after seeing the truth of Vongola's history during his Inheritance Trial, that there was no way he was staying "good" in the Mafia. He could try, he could be stubborn about it, but there was no way to avoid violence, not when the world was so cruel...and stupid.

But he knew, right from the very start, that he would always put his family first, and if he had to stain himself to protect them…

He would gladly do so.

"I gave them two chances, yet they insist in harming my family," a growl. Every person in the world were paying rapt attention to the boss, waiting for his orders—and to kill him if he ordered the wrong thing. "This is enough," he said. "Some people just don't deserve mercy."

Gokudera smiled darkly. "Your orders, Boss?"

"…Obliterate them."

This time, three Families were wiped out overnight.

The warning was heard, at last. But the men died right after learning them.

Tsuna cried, and the kids cried with him, but he knew there was no other way around it.

Tsuna was merciful, almost a saint, but he would never be truly a saint for he would always put his family above everything else. Even his own morality.


End file.
